Samuel Thompson was born in Belfast and grew up in the loyalist working-class areas of Shankill and Ballysillan, where he witnessed the start and worst years of the Northern Ireland Troubles. He joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary at the age of eighteen in 1979 and served in Counties Armagh and Tyrone, West Belfast and Belfast city centre, where he experienced the loss of colleagues and friends and saw numerous killings and bombings at first hand. Samuel retired in 2008 and expanded his love of history through writing a history of the Second World War and lecturing on the subject.

A very good book … Despite my having diametrically opposite experiences … the novel does not read as propaganda. – Danny Morrison

Samuel Thompson was born in Belfast and grew up in the loyalist working-class areas of Shankill and Ballysillan, where he witnessed the start and worst years of the Northern Ireland Troubles. He joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary at the age of eighteen in 1979 and served in Counties Armagh and Tyrone, West Belfast and Belfast city centre, where he experienced the loss of colleagues and friends and saw numerous killings and bombings at first hand. Samuel retired in 2008 and expanded his love of history through writing a history of the Second World War and lecturing on the subject.

A very good book … Despite my having diametrically opposite experiences … the novel does not read as propaganda. – Danny Morrison

Samuel Thompson was born in Belfast and grew up in the loyalist working-class areas of Shankill and Ballysillan, where he witnessed the start and worst years of the Northern Ireland Troubles. He joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary at the age of eighteen in 1979 and served in Counties Armagh and Tyrone, West Belfast and Belfast city centre, where he experienced the loss of colleagues and friends and saw numerous killings and bombings at first hand. Samuel retired in 2008 and expanded his love of history through writing a history of the Second World War and lecturing on the subject.

A very good book … Despite my having diametrically opposite experiences … the novel does not read as propaganda. – Danny Morrison